


soldier's heart, railway spine

by lethandralis



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Canon-typical violence talk, M/M, Podfic Available, background slow-burn-ish relationship, but mostly it's just the boys helping each other, hallucination talk, mental illness talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 20:24:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8815072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethandralis/pseuds/lethandralis
Summary: learning how to cope with yourself is remarkably easier with someone kind to help you along.





	

They take up travelling together in May, after the incident at the saloon in west Texas, and he is able to hold off the demons that stalk him until mid-July.

They’ve made it up into Oklahoma, following a meandering path up from eastern Texas bringing them through any town big enough for Billy to put on a show. As they sweep up north they continue sweeping in tidy sums. It is, they agree, as easy as life might be expected to be for men of their sort. Billy proves himself to be a natural showman - quiet and stoic in a way that benefits him, but with little flashes of flair here and there. He saves the hairpin trick for particularly nasty opponents.

In far southern Oklahoma they stop for the night at the edge of a large homestead as a thunderstorm rolls in overhead. A rocky overhang in a hillside is all the shelter they can find. Although the rocks underfoot are uncomfortable and the fire is sparse, they settle in for the evening. No place better is likely to present itself anytime soon.

Billy falls asleep first, as he is wont to do; he is not a heavy sleeper, but Goodnight suspects that sleep simply comes easier to him. Sleep seems to come easier to almost everyone. Thunder begins to rumble in the distance just as Goodnight throws sand on the fire, the rise and fall of Billy’s chest slowing.

It has been several years and yet even now it is all too clear to him. The sound of gunfire and artillery etched into his mind, indelible. Distantly, an Oklahoma thunderstorm winds itself up to strike, and Goodnight braces himself for the worst.

This is nothing new to him. He’s always counted himself as somewhat impressionable, even long after he had grown into himself. _I’m not hard enough for this_ , he had told himself, marching on aching feet through a field in Maryland that was not his home. It was not his home, and yet he held the rifle in his hands and fired it in defense of a cause that, in the end, he didn’t even stand for.

Later on, a newspaper had told him that he’d fought through the bloodiest battle in American history, and he took the news by setting fire to the paper.

The worst of the storm hits them as Goodnight has himself braced against the back wall of their pathetic little shelter, trembling bodily, trying not to wake Billy. A bolt of lightning strikes the ground and he jumps. Several seconds later, a teeth-chattering rumble of thunder threatens to make him sob.

He remembers this chest-rattling noise, in a different time, a different place, for a different reason. When they had been fighting in the war, they set up big lines of artillery and Gatling guns and fired them off in volleys, deafeningly loud and startling enough to rattle his brain. During training drills the sound had made him jump so bad that he’d once given himself a black eye with his own damn rifle. It never quite got better. He had learned to compensate, adjust his aim for his own jumping. But he never stopped flinching, not even in the last battle he fought in, before Lee surrendered and they sent him home.

When the thunder claps again, he can see the line of men yards in front of him, falling to the ground as if they were boneless. All in a flash. He can _see them_ , and it is years later now, and there is no more war to fight, but here it is, all so fucking viscerally real. He can feel the blood dribbling down from his forehead, fresh as the moment he’d been struck.

A hand slips up his face. He checks the site of the ancient, long-healed wound for blood, and finds none.

The storm eventually passes. Billy does not stir. Well after midnight, with the fire extinguished and an impressive amount of bourbon in his system, Goodnight falls into a restless and haunted sleep.

The storms are subdued as they travel west. If Billy noticed anything about Goodnight’s breakdown underneath the rock ledge, he says nothing of it. Summer rainstorms beat at their heads occasionally, but with no thunder.

* * *

 

Another month passes. They narrowly avoid trouble in Erie, chased out of town on horseback by someone who recognizes them and their little show from back in Texas. Once they’re out of earshot, Billy collapses down onto the back of his horse’s neck, shaking with laughter.

“What’s so funny?” asks Goodnight, steadying their path and easing them still west to the Rockies.

“He was mad at us because he lost to me,” manages Billy. “I remember him. A shitty shot. Threw a fit when the officiator said I’d won fair and square.”

Goodnight shakes his head, chuckling. “Can’t say all men have the same impeccable moral standing as you and I, Billy.”

“Apparently not!”

They ride off west towards the distant mountains, Billy shaking off aftershocks of laughter and Goodnight struggling to contain the blossoming warmth in his chest.

* * *

 

Up towards the mountains they find a small militia training to take on a local silver baron. They take shots with rifles at the black knots on the bark of the aspen trees, all through the entire day they’re staying in Loveland. By nightfall Goodnight finds himself trembling all over, nursing at his putrid flask of laudanum and whisky, holed up in their hotel room as evening overtakes the town.

The lock of the room turns just as someone in the distance practices artillery fire for the third time this afternoon, and Goodnight is unable to realize that Billy has walked in and shut the door behind him.

The weight of the bed shifts.

“Goodnight.”

He sighs, opening his eyes just barely. “Hey, Billy.”

“Are you okay?”

“Just dandy, thank you.”

Billy studies him for just a moment. _What a sorry sight I am_ , thinks Goodnight _. A grown man curled up into a ball, covering his ears in a foreign hotel room because he can’t handle some noise_.

“Okay. I don’t believe that. What happened? Are you sick?” Goodnight listens for an edge in Billy’s voice that isn’t there. Apprehension, disgust, pity, anger, _anything_.

_In a sense,_ thinks Goodnight. “No.”

Muscle-by-muscle, he urges himself to an upright position, uncovering his ears and opening his eyes fully. It is nearly dark out. Billy sits at the other end of the bed, not close to Goodnight but close enough. He looks concerned, no hint of anger in his face or his body.

“It’s the guns, isn’t it,” says Billy, not a question.

Goodnight reaches for a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table. “It is.” No use in lying now. His hands shake as he tries to strike a match.

“I’m sorry.” Billy’s voice is so desperately genuine that Goodnight worries he may burst into tears for the third time today. “If I’d’ve known they bothered you so bad I wouldn’t have offered to stay here.” He gestures to take the box of matches from Goodnight’s hands, and Goodnight gives in, dropping his third broken match to the floor. Billy lights the cigarette as it sits between Goodnight’s lips and returns the matchbox without a word.

“Do we need to leave?”

Goodnight glances at the window. There has been no gunfire for a few minutes now, and it’s getting dark enough to make shooting unsafe. He imagines the regiments of scared young men packing it in for the night. “No. I’d not like to stay longer than tomorrow morning, though.”

“Okay.” Billy’s shoulders ease, just by a hair. “Are you going to be alright?”

Goodnight takes an extended drag from his cigarette, lets out a shaky breath full of smoke. “Yeah. Gimme a while. Sorry you had to see me like this. Doesn’t happen too often.”

Billy almost smiles at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

Goodnight is left alone for a while to cool down and regain his composure while Billy heads down to the store and buys bread and cheese for supper. When Billy returns, he finds that Goodnight has washed his face and opened the windows in their room. He spots the glossy handle of a pistol in the drawer of the bedside table but says nothing of it.

They eat in silence, one lamp lit between their beds. Billy finishes first. The air between them carries the strange tension of two men who simultaneously want to begin a conversation but don’t want to say anything.

The sun goes down. Billy lights another lantern on the rickety table at the edge of the room. The silence aches on. He sets to the slow, methodical work of polishing his knives, a nightly ritual he’s maintained since before he met Goodnight.

Goodnight has cleaned his plate, smoked a cigarette, and checked the locks on the door before he breaks.

“I think you should know why I get so damn jumpy around loud noises.”

Billy looks up from his work. “Okay. Why?”

“I don’t know, because you seem to care and I think it’ll help if you know? I’ve had a long day, Billy, bear with me.” Goodnight sinks down onto the bed nearest the wall, facing Billy.

“That sounds good. Go ahead.” Billy’s voice has all the softness about it that Goodnight thinks he is capable of. He puts his knives aside.

Leaning back on the heels of his hands, Goodnight begins. “I was in the war, you know. Probably heard. Damn near everyone south of the Mason-Dixon recognizes my name for no good reason.” Billy nods in understanding. “I fought but I didn’t… want to fight. I did it ‘cause my papa did it, and ‘cause my brothers did it, but not ‘cause I believed in it. I was just a damn pup, goin’ out there when I’d scarcely ever held a gun, shootin’ down the sons of the Union, right on the front lines.”

“Something like that will change a man forever,” adds Billy, quietly, as he scrutinizes the edge of his favorite blade.

“Right, exactly. Watched a lotta men die, a lotta men I ain’t got no right to judge. And. Uh. Well, it was a long time ago, y’know, but it still haunts me. I can’t stand the sound of gunfire anymore, or anything like it. Makes me damn near jump outta my skin.” He reaches to his bedside table and waves his flask with a little flourish. “Our doctor back in Louisiana prescribed me laudanum, which works okay most times, but not always. Said I had the ‘soldier’s heart’. Told me I ought to take it easy for a long time, I told him no-sir, I ain’t stayin’ here.”

“Which is how you ended up here?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. There were a lot of steps in-between. But there you have it.”

“And how can I help?”

Goodnight goes silent for a moment, holding the flask between his knees. “Help?”

Billy’s gaze is stony and serious. “You heard me.”

Puzzled, Goodnight tilts his head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“You said it hurts you, sometimes. I know you have medicine for it, but there’s got to be something else I can do to keep it from hurting.”

“You don’t have to do that, Billy-“

Billy raises a hand, cutting him off. “I know I don’t have to. Please tell me anyway. If you can.”

Staring into the middle distance, Goodnight sighs. He tries to think back to what he told his sister, who had sat him down a week after he’d gotten home from the war and asked him what he needed of her. Lee had surrendered a month prior. He’d showed up at his family’s doorstep in Baton Rouge a shadow of a man, bone-skinny with distant, cold eyes. It was so long ago. Scarcely anyone has tried to have this conversation with him since.

He feels a hand meet his knee, so gentle it might not even be there. He has to look to confirm its existence. His eyes flash from the hand on his knee (real) up to Billy’s face (questionable). Billy does not smile.

“Well. Alright.”

They talk long into the night about opium, about coping, about good and bad sorts of silence. Goodnight admits to the thunderstorm in Oklahoma, to the shaking he had to subdue long into the next morning. Billy admits he slept straight through it, a point which causes Goodnight an inexplicable sort of relief. At some point in the evening they both end up leaning against the far wall on Goodnight’s bed, scarcely six inches of distance between them.

Goodnight runs out of words after a while and lights another cigarette, this time with steadier hands. Billy admits, after a sip out of his own hip flask, to a long, persistent string of nightmares, stretching far back into his childhood. About ships and cholera and the queasy practice of throwing bodies overboard, wrapped in linen and weighed down with iron. And others, newer ones, about razor sharp knives and too much blood, on his hands and the hands of others. His voice is low, so soft it’s nearly inaudible. Goodnight doesn’t understand it, not entirely. He realizes as Billy speaks of the Northern Pacific Railroad that there is nothing here that he is supposed to understand. But if he reaches into the dark, he can feel out the bones of the thing.

By the time all the words have run dry between them it’s considerably late and Billy is dozing off where he sits. Goodnight goads him gently into returning to his own bed before undressing and blowing out the lanterns. Billy acquiesces with quiet complaints, kicking off his boots and wriggling out of his waistcoat before lying down.

The night around them is quiet. Neither of them dream.

* * *

 

They pass the winter down south, avoiding the storms. Goodnight has only had one very bad day in that time, but not as bad as the afternoon in Loveland. He catches Billy giving him looks sometimes, his features softened.

The anonymity of their mobile lifestyle has its advantages. There is, for example, nobody around to see them leaning on each other around their fire way out in the scrubland. The wide, open expanses of the wilderness don’t care about the fact that when the sun hits them in the morning it finds them wrapped up tight together. The skittering wildlife won’t tell when they catch glimpses of stolen kisses over supper.

They continue on, town to town. Goodnight doesn’t watch Billy’s quick-draw contests. He hasn’t for a while; he organizes the fights, collects and distributes the bets, and often provides some of the fanfare before and after. But he always finds someone else to officiate. Usually, he can be found sitting up high somewhere out of the way, nursing a cigarette and his flask, never watching more than out of the corner of his eye. In case something goes wrong.

Nothing major ever goes wrong, of course. Once in Kansas Billy got badly grazed on his arm by a one-eyed man with a big ego, but that’s about the extent of his career-related injuries thus far.

With his attention diverted, and his senses dulled by liquor and opium, Goodnight can almost ignore the crack of gunfire that he sits several paces away from, several times a day. The cash, and the sly little smiles he gets from Billy every time he wins make up for his shot nerves and endless headaches. By all accounts, he’s taken to living a decent life.

He is elated, then, when they make it to Dallas, the first real city he’s seen in ages. There’s likely no good market for a quickdraw competition here, but they’ve desperately needed to restock on supplies for ages now, and what better place to do it than here? Goodnight wastes no time in getting them a room and something hot to eat. His travelling partner is quiet, uncharacteristically so, and by the time they get back to their room after nightfall Billy seems downright anxious. The graceful line of his shoulders is drawn up, tense, ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

Goodnight lights the lamp in their room while Billy washes up. The silence between them feels stifling, like a prickly wool blanket.

“Billy,” eases Goodnight, eventually. “You seem… off-kilter.”

“I’m fine,” replies Billy, automatically, not looking up from the knife he’s sharpening.

Goodnight huffs in return. “You and I both know that’s horseshit. What’s wrong?”

Billy finishes his stroke against the whetstone and sighs like a wounded man. He puts his work aside. “Not fond of cities.”

Goodnight has to coax it out of him over the course of two hours, but after a good while and a lot of gentle words, Billy tells him a story. A story of a younger man, having taken his fate into his own hands and taken a knife to the throat of the Railroad supervisor who thought he and his co-workers didn’t deserve to be paid for their work on account of their complexions. Billy clasps his hands in his lap and tells the story of hearing heavy footsteps outside of a boardinghouse room in Denver and jumping from the second-story window to escape. Of leaving behind half of his belongings and clamoring onto his horse in the dark, shaking bodily. Of hearing gunshots in the distance behind him as he fled out east into the plains.

“I think I lost him around Missouri,” says Billy. His voice is rough, uncharacteristically so. “He was very persistent. Big bounty. The railroad hired him. I wonder what he told them, when he went back.”

“’I got lost in the Ozarks tailing the most beautiful man anyone’s ever seen and decided it was high time to give up’,” offers Goodnight, doing his best impression of a Northern accent. “Something like that, I’d reckon.”

Billy huffs out a laugh. “Maybe. That was a year or so ago. I had other close calls. Here is some advice: don’t piss off the railroad. They’ll keep hiring bounty hunters until someone brings them your head on a stick.” His words are light but his tone is the same sort of deadly serious as it always has been.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” says Goodnight, nodding solemnly.

“It’s a lot easier to run into someone who’s on your tail in a big city like this. I haven’t seen anyone who seems to be after me in a while, but still. Not exactly my favorite place to be.”

Goodnight sighs and places a hand on Billy’s thigh. “Oh, sugar.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.” He squeezes Billy’s thigh gently. “Do we need to leave?”

Billy shakes his head. “Keep the door locked, and I’ll be fine. Don’t want to stay long, though.”

“Of course not. We’ll leave tomorrow. Will you be alright if we buy some supplies, though?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, please, come here. You look like you might jump out of your skin.” Goodnight opens his arms and Billy eases in.

The beds in their room are characteristically small, but nicer than most of the beds they’ve shared. Billy falls asleep hard and fast with his ear over Goodnight’s heart, tension finally leaving his shoulders as he drifts off. Goodnight stays up into the night, watching and listening and holding.

* * *

 

They ride out of Dallas in the early afternoon with full bags and emptier pockets, heading out west for the clear horizon. Once the last of the buildings are far out of sight behind them, Billy eases up bit by bit. By the time they stop to make camp and have supper, he’s telling bad jokes again, and Goodnight feels something in his heart loosen.

Travelling brings about a calm monotony between them. Set sights on a town, ride out, spend a few days on quick-draw contests, buy supplies, ride out. Repeat on an aimless, meandering path to wherever there’s people and the weather is decent. Long stretches of contentment are punctuated here and there with ecstatic joy and terrible despair, but it all washes out alright.

They fall together, sometimes, when they’re someplace safe and warm and preferably with a door that locks. Nine times out of ten it’s fast little things, a hurried race towards a rushed climax, but it’s still good. They still burn together with unimaginable heat. Goodnight still grins all lopsided and syrupy after, every single time, and Billy still goes all soft and pliant, if only for a few minutes.

The life they lead together is easy, when the nights aren’t long and the nightmares are kept at bay. With time, though, they fall into step. Billy fusses over him, sometimes. Between larger towns, the laudanum tends to dry up, and then the ghosts start creeping back at the edges of his psyche, bit by bit. He hears owls out in the plains where there’s no trees for miles. Sometimes he sees people at the edges of his vision in empty forests.

“We can stop for a while,” he says once in California over a nearly empty bottle of laudanum and a creaky double hotel bed. It is long after Fort Worth. The nearest decent pharmacy is in the next town, a days’ ride away. “We’ve got enough to coast on for a while. Find a quiet town someplace and relax.”

Goodnight sighs. Shrugs his shoulders in the way he always does when there’s nothing to be done. “And what would we _do_? Sit around on our asses until we run out of money?”

“We could get regular jobs,” Billy offers with the air of a man who knows he’s offering a ridiculous proposition but wants to try at it anyway.

Goodnight scoffs. “A man of the Orient and a Confederate dandy with an unsteady heart. Sure. Great job prospects.” He fishes from his pocket his pack of straight tobacco cigarettes, lights one between his teeth.

Billy sighs. Defeated. “I know.” He gestures and Goodnight hands him the cigarette. He takes a long drag and hands it back, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. “I just hate seeing you so… fried.”

“You’re awfully sweet, Billy,” says Goodnight, almost smiling, patting Billy’s hand. “I’ll be alright.”

They eat dinner that night in the tiny restaurant attached to their hotel, overpriced and burnt food that nonetheless fills them up. They slip back upstairs to their room and Goodnight spends the evening carefully rationing out the rest of his medications: he’s got barely enough opium-laced cigarettes and laudanum to make it to the next town, provided they set out early, ride at a decent rate, and don’t run into any trouble. If he must, he can cut his laudanum tincture with a little bit more whisky than he typically does, but he doesn’t like to do that if he can avoid it. Once he’s checked and triple-checked everything, he puts everything back into his pack with the great care of someone holding their own life in their hands.

Billy coaxes him back into bed with soft hands and softer words. They don’t quite come together as they have before, instead just tangling up underneath the threadbare blankets and talking, low and soft, until they drift off.

* * *

 

They make it to the next town just fine, and the next, and the one after that, too, and even after that there is a long string of places at which there is very little trouble to speak of. Goodnight begins to wonder if he hasn’t found something very special in a bounty case from the Northern Pacific Railroad.

* * *

 

He wakes very late at night, jolting upright in a cold sweat underneath the Nevada stars. Gasping for breath, he reaches for his gun before his eyes are even fully open. The mild winter night lays empty before him.

A voice comes from over his shoulder, familiar and soft.

“Goodnight.”

He tenses and releases his hands around the gun.

“It was a dream again, wasn’t it?”

He nods. This time it had been the one with the Gatling gun and the crows, a particularly terrible recurring plot.

“I think you should put the gun down.” Billy’s voice is level and quiet and firm. He sits about a foot in front of Goodnight, not moving, not touching him.

Goodnight breathes in deep, holds it a second, and releases the air through his nose. “We’re safe?”

“Entirely. Nobody around for miles, I bet.” With great care, he places one bare hand on the barrel of the rifle. “Will you please give me the gun?”

Goodnight nods, releasing his hands by degrees. Billy takes the gun with the same care that one might remove a piece of fine china from a cabinet, re-setting the safety before putting it down. The dance they’re doing is long-practiced by now, and even though he’s half-awake Billy knows all the steps by heart.

“Thank you,” says Billy.

Before Goodnight can even think to answer there are two fingers and a lit cigarette in front of his face. He accepts the cigarette with a nod and a half-smile.

“Do you need to talk about it?”

Goodnight shakes his head and blows out a long puff of smoke from his nose. “Same old shit. Thanks, though.”

“Of course.”

Slowly, the chorus of crickets and rustling plants overtakes the sound of Goodnight’s pulse in his ears. He smokes his cigarette, takes a swig from his flask, and lays back down, Billy tucked underneath his arm. It’s awfully late; sunrise will be in a few hours. Billy sounds exhausted.

“What would I do without you?” asks Goodnight, quietly enough that if Billy is asleep (as he suspects he may be), he won’t hear.

“I’d say the same about you,” answers Billy, lacing their fingers together.

**Author's Note:**

> i love burning in cowboy husband hell! WOO  
> i've had this thing going since like a week after i saw the movie (in fucking. october or whatever), and now i've finally finished school for the semester. reasonably i've stopped writing papers and started writing fic.  
> shoutout to the entire saloon server on discord for being darling cheerleaders and friends and idea-bouncers! also shoutout to **coloneldollhouse** for beta-ing this monstrosity and dealing with my horrid comma splices. i am so sorry.  
>  also, fun historical fact (not actually fun): "soldier's heart" and "railway spine" are both very old terms for what we now call PTSD! soldier's heart originated during the civil war with reports of soldiers with elevated heart rates and trouble breathing. railway spine emerged in europe during the industrial revolution. more railway use also led to more rail accidents, and survivors of the accidents were believed to be a little off because of an injury to the spinal cord. (i'm aware that "railway spine" isn't actually applicable here, but i like the sound of it. let me be.)  
> [tumblr](http://lethandral1s.tumblr.com) || [twitter](http://twitter.com/lethandralis)


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